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After a rather underwhelming Monday Night RAW, WWE came with a slightly better episode of SmackDown Live. While it took RAW almost an hour to come up with its first match, SmackDown pretty much started with Kofi Kingston taking on Kevin Owens.
There were some other highlights too. Charlotte Flair and Lacey Evans formed an alliance only for it to be broken some minutes later after Evans lost her match against Bayley, thanks to unintended interruption from Flair.
Also, for the main event, Roman Reigns was paired up with an already beat up R-Truth against Drew McIntyre and Elias, a match which ended in a win – obviously – for Reigns and his partner.
Earlier in the day, Truth lost his 24/7 Title to Elias, but regained it after the Tag Team main event match with the help of Roman Reigns. With that, the show was concluded and here are the 5 things the company secretly may have told us…
#5 Kingston will have a strong reign
While some predicted Kofi Kingston to be a transitional champions before someone like Roman Reigns took over, the member of the New Day has, so far, been booked strongly by the company.
He has been rather unbeatable ever since winning the WWE Championship at WrestleMania 35 and beat Kevin Owens with ease in the opening non-title match of the show.
Given how enthusiastic he has been regarding defending his title whenever he got the opportunity – and the manner in which he did it – has uplifted his status as the champion.
And his wins in non-title matches, like the ones against Owens on SmackDown Live, are a further testament that he is going to be portrayed as a very strong and tough-to-beat champion.
#4 Black might soon have a feud
Like Bray Wyatt in his Firefly Fun House segments, Aleister Black has also been giving promos almost every week. The Dutch Destroyer, however, hasn’t been pitted against anybody in a feud yet.
However, in his recent promo on SmackDown Live, he mentioned that “you” – perhaps the fans – are waiting for him to pick someone and have a feud with him, which is absolutely correct.
After that, he stated – in a rather ominous smiling tone – that he is actually waiting for someone to “pick a fight” against him. While his words might just be that – words – it seems as though the WWE are finally going to put him against someone.
And they must because after all, he is among the most talented wrestlers in the industry and soon enough, promos alone won’t be enough.
#3 24/7 is Truth’s title
Ever since R-Truth became the 24/7 Champion, he has been running around from other Superstars that are trying to get the title off him. He managed to run them off for a week before the very act of running put him in trouble on SmackDown Live.
As he was running away from Drave Maverick, he crashed into Shane McMahon, who was accompanied by Drew McIntyre and Elias, in the ring. The three brutalized him before Elias pinned him to win the title.
The fun didn’t last long for Elias as after his Tag Team match against Reigns and Truth, the former speared him before asking the latter to pin him and reclaim the title that he had lost earlier in the night.
This is a testament that the 24/7 Title is going to be Truth’s title. Obviously, he could lose it next week but at least in the initial stages, Truth might feature heavily with it.
#2 McIntyre could help McMahon at Super ShowDown
I am personally not a fan of Drew McIntyre being used as a second-fiddle bodyguard to Shane McMahon. This was a guy that brutalized the main roster last year when he arrived from NXT.
He was booked as an unstoppable heel who couldn’t be halted but suddenly, all of that changed when he was pitted in a feud against Roman Reigns for WrestleMania. In the last few weeks, he has been superman punched so many times by Reigns that it wouldn’t be wrong to claim that he is now the punching bag of the Big Dog.
With all the momentum that he had now gone, and with him being Shane McMahon’s bodyguard, we could expect him to play a fundamental ‘assistant’ role at Super Showdown in Saudi Arabia.
He could either cost Reign his match against McMahon – which is highly unlikely – or be buried further when the Big Dog takes down both him and McMahon to win the match.
#1 Brand Split only exists in name
The Wild Card rule is simply… wild. It has now gotten to such a point that Brand Split only exists in the form of name and nothing else. On SmackDown Live, we saw McIntyre come from RAW to team up with Elias to face Reigns and Truth.
Earlier in the night, Bayley faced Lacey Evans in a match that didn’t make much sense at all because for one, Bayley is the SmackDown Women’s Champion and Evans is from RAW, and two, the Sassy Southern Belle is still embroiled in a feud with Becky Lynch for the RAW Women’s Title.
Also, if Bayley had to have match, there were countless Superstars in the SmackDown Women’s Division to choose from but that is not the route taken by the company.
As a result, it is safe to admit that the ‘split’ doesn’t really exist literally and only lives on the paper.
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